South Bastion, Gibraltar

South Bastion
Part of Fortifications of Gibraltar
Gibraltar
Lord Nelson Memorial in front of South Bastion's eastern façade in Gibraltar.
Lower section of Charles V Wall showing lines of fire from the South Bastion. The right side of the diagram is the south side. The Flat Bastion is above the South Bastion in this diagram.
South Bastion
Coordinates	36°08′03″N 5°21′14″W / 36.134261°N 5.353781°W / 36.134261; -5.353781
Site information
Owner	Government of Gibraltar
Open to the public	Yes
Site history
Built	1540
Built by	Philip II of Spain

The South Bastion was part of the fortifications of Gibraltar, protecting the western base of the Charles V Wall. It was originally built by Spanish military engineers, later improved by the British. The South Bastion stands at the south end of the Line Wall Curtain which defends the town from attack from the Bay of Gibraltar. Another curtain wall runs east from the bastion to the base of a precipice. This wall is pierced by the Southport Gates, guarded by the South Bastion and the Flat Bastion on either side.

The Milanese military engineer Giovanni Battista Calvi visited Gibraltar in 1557 and drew plans for two defensive positions to the south of the town, where the South Bastion and Flat Bastion now stand, connected by a new curtain wall. Calvi was ill, and did not stay to carry out the planned works. It may have been another Italian, Amodeo Agostino, who died in 1571 who built the original bastions. Another source says the bastion that was incorporated into the South Bastion was probably designed for Philip II of Spain by the Italian engineer Giacomo Fratino in the 1560s.

The South Bastion, called the Baluarte de Nuestra Señora del Rosario ("Bastion of Our Lady of the Rosary") by the Spanish, had been built by 1627. Casemented gun positions on the bastion enfiladed the ditch across the Gate of Africa, now the Southport Gate. The South bastion, and the Flat Bastion further inland, protected the Southport Gate, which lay between them. A writer in 1786 described the southern defenses of Gibraltar:

From the South bastion (which is considerably higher than the rest of the works, in order to protect the town from the eminences on the red sands) a curtain [wall] extends up the face of the hill, and concludes, at an inaccessible precipice, the works of the town. In this curtain is the South port gate, before which, and the south bastion, is a dry ditch, with a covered way and glacis. At the east end, on the declivity of the hill, above the gate, is a large flat bastion, connected with the curtain, and mounting 13 guns, bearing on the bay, &c. This work is covered by a demi-bastion that joins the precipice.